Heretofore railway roadbed cleaners have been proposed as in the expired Miller et al U.S. Pat. No. 2,505,501 of Apr. 25, 1950 in which a vehicle is provided with wheels for engaging the rails of a railway and with rotary brushes for engaging the surface of the roadbed to brush foreign objects onto conveyors for deposit into a hopper carried by the vehicle.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,401,365 to Grader et al of Sept. 10, 1968 and U.S. Pat. No. 3,249,211 to Gray of May 3, 1966 both show magnetic railway track cleaners utilizing magnets to pick up magnetic articles from the roadbed.
U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,157,267 and 3,232,408 to Asbury disclose roadway signal device retrievers in which an endless conveyor of non-magnetic material rotates about a lower drum driven by supporting wheels with the drum including permanent magnets and with the conveyor discharging into a towing truck to pick up signal devices having a base of magnetic material.
The present invention provides unexpected advantages and unexpected flexibility of operation over this prior art for use with all existing methods of railway track laying and railway track replacement particularly with modern endless welded rails.